Britain woke up last Friday weaker and more isolated, after Prime Minister David Cameron vetoed new European Union treaty changes at a meeting billed “the summit to save the Euro”.

When later defending his actions in Parliament, Cameron claimed he went to Brussels with one objective, “to protect Britain’s national interest”. But that is exactly what he has failed to do. Cameron has undermined British power within the European Union, granting France their long-standing wish of a Europe with them in the cockpit and Britain on the side-lines. Speaking to Reuters, one senior EU official said, “This is not just a long-standing desire, but a long-standing goal of French politics… because in the French tradition Britain never really belonged to the European Union, dating back to De Gaulle’. Sarkozy now has the opportunity to guide France towards a smaller, more integrated Europe run by a Franco-German alliance. This gives French tendencies towards trade protectionism and state intervention in industry greater clout, at Britain’s expense.

This veto also has diplomatic ramifications beyond European borders. The Anglo-American relationship is built in part on our influence in Europe and our ability to act as a bridge between Washington and Berlin and Paris. It seems unlikely Obama will be enthusiastic to continue a privileged relationship with Britain over Europe when Britain is on the periphery. Similarly, William Hague’s strategy of pursuing diplomatic ties with the rising BRIC nations also partly relies on our sway in the single market, which is of importance to the rising industries of these nations.

Not only has Cameron united Europe against him, but he has also failed to win a veto over EU financial services legislation, leading many in the City to question whether their interests have in fact been protected at all. Britain may also now struggle to get support to oppose financial regulations when they come to a vote of the full council. All financial regulations are subject to qualified majority voting, which means that countries must build alliances to oppose a decision – something Britain may now find it difficult to accomplish. 

But the City not only needs Britain to be able to influence European policy, it also needs it to endorse the European project. In a letter to the Financial Times, Tom Brown, senior credit executive at Norddeutsche Landesbank, said the City would be “finished” were it not in a single market with freedom of movement of capital and people. It is not only the single market which is of great importance to the City, but the survival and health of the Euro which is vital to our prosperity. The breakup of the Euro would be so catastrophic for the British economy that the Bank of England says it is unable to even model the scenario. Martin Wolf, chief economics commentator at the Financial Times, has previously estimated that between 20% and 30% of European GDP could be lost should such a catastrophe occur. Britain’s primary concern in these deeply uncertain times must be to protect the Euro and yet the use of the veto did nothing but further destabilize the European economic climate.  

What is becoming clear is that this veto was not the action of a prime minister acting in the national interest, but one acting on far more narrow political interests. For the German and French leaders, it was politically impossible to provide special treaty exemptions for the industry that caused the financial crisis in the first place, so how has it become acceptable in the UK? Admittedly, the financial services industry in Britain is the largest in Europe and accounts for 7.5% of GDP, while a recent survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers commissioned by the City of London Corporation shows that Britain’s financial services firms contributed 12% of all government tax revenue in the 12 months through March. But as Will Hutton pointed out in his Sunday piece for the Observer, only a small portion of the industry was threatened by the treaty. This proportion includes much of the casino dimension of the City, whose actions were most to blame for the financial crisis. It is therefore worrying to consider Cameron’s actions in light of last week’s Financial Times investigation, which revealed that the Conservative party received over £14m from hedge funds in the past 10 years, with donations shooting up since the financial crisis began to hit. 

But the truth is that though Cameron is acting in the interests of a minority, he is supported by a majority, both in his party and the public at large. A poll for the Mail on Sunday found 62% of respondents support Cameron’s move, with only 19% saying he was wrong. The latest Ipsos Mori poll found the Conservatives to have overtaken Labour for the first time this year, as Cameron enjoys a bounce from his use of the veto. And yet such opinions are unsurprising when polls reveal how misinformed much of the British public is over Europe, with Britons on average estimating Britain loses out by 19% in EU contributions. In reality, we contribute only 0.12% more than we receive back in tangible benefits. The unquantifiable benefits are much larger. 

Cameron’s veto was a diplomatic failure that gained us nothing and damaged British interests at home and abroad.  As the Eurozone crisis rapidly evolves, it remains to be seen whether the damage can be undone. Just this week, France was threatened with a downgrade of its AAA credit rating and a war of words ensued between Paris and London. In such volatile economic conditions, it is perhaps the hardest it has ever been to predict long term political outcomes.

As news arrived early on Friday morning of the untimely end of Christopher Hitchens, commentators, friends and admirers rushed forward at an extraordinary pace to offer their tributes and memories. While their quality (and levels of affection) vary, what does not is the huge admiration and respect that this great journalist inspired in everyone he encountered. The sheer volume of personal anecdotes and essays that have flooded the internet reflects this. Hitchens had an astounding ability to express his mind so clearly that upon reading him – and especially upon meeting him – you couldn’t help but feel you knew him intimately. 

Though frequently described as a ‘public intellectual’, he was as far as one can imagine from the superficial or pompous implications of such a term. As thousands of words pour out from across the world in tribute, it is becoming increasingly clear that here was a man of great generosity, encouraging and engaging with everyone around him, regardless of their status or lack thereof. He relished people almost as much as he relished the page. 

Personally, I met him only once, to interview him for Cherwell in May 2010. As with every other story circulating from the people who knew him, he was unfailingly polite, engaged and attentive. This level of courtesy and engagement was made all the more impressive by the fact that the interview itself was an impromptu affair conducted in the back of a taxi, the result of a nervously garbled request from me at his book-signing the night before. As his flight-time approached, he casually predicted several events that at the time seemed highly unlikely, including Ed Miliband’s ascent to the Labour leadership and Sarah Palin’s withdrawal from the presidential race. He was, as ever, dazzlingly interesting (his memoir relates his mother’s assertion that the “one unforgivable sin is to be boring”), despite what I thought, from looking at him, that he must have had a heavy night. 

In fact, this was mere weeks before his diagnosis, and though I had no awareness of the malignant cells silently attacking him from within somewhere between his shoulders and his chin, it was impossible not to notice that he didn’t look well. He certainly looked far worse than a man who’d only recently turned sixty. He smoked one cigarette just before entering the taxi, and immediately lit up several more upon exiting; I told him that I thought he had quit, but he merely shrugged and said, “I have.”

As the taxi travelled quickly out of Oxford, we were soon surrounded by traditional looking countryside, and it doesn’t seem too sentimental to recall the Hitch observing this English greenery with affection. I asked if, being an American citizen now, he returned to these parts much, and he left a pause while still looking out at the fields. “Not as often as I’d like.” Of course, neither of us knew that I was accompanying him in his final moments on British soil. After we arrived at Heathrow, he topped up his nicotine levels and invited me to accompany him as far as security would allow, and the conversation was only stopped by airport officialdom. There was no reason to think that it might not continue on his next visit to his country of birth – a visit that, of course, never happened. 

Following his cancer diagnosis, I emailed him to express my sympathies and send him the finished article, and (as seems to be the case with everyone who contacted him) he sent a prompt reply: 

“I was just beginning to suspect that I might be unwell on that trip, though I had no idea how much danger I was in. You are very generous to describe my conduct as courageous: I don’t have many options and the exit marked cowardice doesn’t seem very clearly-marked in any case, even should I wish to take it. I think the word courage is to be reserved for people who guard polling-places for women in Afghanistan, say, rather than those who come to see what they already knew, which is that the word inevitable means what it says.

“That said, I have some brilliant and resourceful physicians who have given me good reason to hang on, and also made the whole misery a lot less fucking boring than it might otherwise have been.”

Regardless of what he might have thought, courage is undoubtedly the best word for the Hitch, as his brother Peter wrote on Friday: “Courage is deliberately taking a known risk, sometimes physical, sometimes to your livelihood, because you think it is too important not to. My brother possessed this virtue to the very end, and if I often disagreed with the purposes for which he used it, I never doubted the quality or ceased to admire it.”

Finally, amongst all the tributes that have poured out this weekend, it is necessary to correct what I believe to be certain falsehoods: he was not a contrarian; he never gave an opinion on subjects he knew little about (such as climate change, or healthcare), advising me, “where you’re not sure what you’re talking about, you’re well advised to shut the fuck up”; and, despite Nick Clegg’s fawning tribute to him, the Deputy Prime Minister may be disappointed to learn that, as an intern for Hitchens, he made little impression: “I don’t remember him very well. I remember better Eddy Miliband [also an intern at The Nation].”

The rest, I leave to those who really knew him; the tributes of Ian McEwan, James Fenton and Christopher Buckley are particularly impressive, and reflect the admiration and deep affection that he inspired in all he met. Hitchens was an intellectual titan, but also a kind and honourable man. His flame was brighter than most, and was extinguished all too soon.